With an
11 a.m.
Mass celebrated at the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Cathedral, the “Lithuanian
Committee for the Liberation of the Baltic Countries” held a
public demonstration to express their sorrow and rejection of communist
imperialism on the 25th anniversary of the pact between Hitler
and Stalin that caused the occupation of the Baltic countries. “We hope,”
they state, “that the shameful treaties of Yalta and Potsdam be
repudiated, as they caused nine European nations with 100 million
inhabitants to be subjugated by communism.”

Lithuanian refugees have been holding many demonstrations to call the
attention of free peoples to the urgency of resolving their situation.
“The Lithuanian problem,” said one of their leaders, Msgr. Pio
Ragazinskas, “is worldwide because it represents a disgrace that affects a
part of the world and also threatens the other part.”

On the suggestion of Prof. Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, the
official speaker of the III Lithuanian Conference of Latin
America, this assembly telegraphed the Pope, the UN, [President]
Johnson and [Brazil’s]
President Castelo Branco asking them to intervene in order to immediately
liberate Lithuania from the “monstrous yoke of Soviet communism.”

Here is the full text of the telegram sent to His Holiness:

“The III Lithuanian Conference of Latin America, assembled at Sao Paulo
and gathering Lithuanians from all free countries, heeding a suggestion by
the illustrious Brazilian thinker, Plinio Corrêa de Oliveira, author of
The Freedom of the Church in the Communist State,
implore [the] compassion of the August Vicar of Christ on our fellow
countrymen imprisoned [and] exiled in Siberia, [and] ask the very
high-level intervention of Your Holiness with the UN to enable the
immediate liberation of Lithuania from the monstrous Soviet communist yoke
according to the principle of people’s self-determination.”

In a vehement appeal to the free world, Msgr. Jonas Balkunas, Funding
President of the Supreme Committee for the Liberation of Lithuania,
states: “Today, after 25 years of occupation
Lithuania has only 40,000 communists, that is, 1.4% of its population.
Russia has exiled more than 600,000 Lithuanians to Siberia. The bloody
persecution against the Church continues. The nation’s annihilation
proceeds inexorably. Morally, however, Lithuania is not subjugated. Her
resistance is active, through secret movements. And yet she is abandoned
to her own fate. In a few more years she may have been forgotten. Time is
of the essence. The Americas and the Free World must fly to her help.”

It seems incredible that the West hardly notices that nine countries of
civilized
Europe
have thus been subjected to communist totalitarianism. Even more
incredible is the fact that many preachers of self-determination for
African tribes remain completely silent about this issue. This is,
however, the attitude that “leftist Catholics” have taken.